Friday, October 09, 2009

Grocery Shopping All By Your Lonesome Day!

Get past the pears with your eyes closed. She liked pears. Ate one every day.

She hated cereal and she hated the sound of you eating it. Now when you eat it, it's deafening. You can see what she meant. Skip the cereal and switch to toast.

Don't buy any milk. Milk was her thing. In her coffee. You don't need it anymore. Before she moved in the only milk you ever had in your fridge was sour. You'd buy it and forget you had it until it started to stink. You have to prove that her leaving won't make your fridge stink. If she wanted to go, fine. She'd better not think that now that she's gone your fridge is going to stink again, because it's not. Your fridge will smell just fine.

No eggs either. Long story. Long funny story. You two laughed like idiots that morning.

You're out of light bulbs which is fine because two are burned out and you'd like to wait for the other two to go so that you won't have to see your life without her. You're out of paper towels but it doesn't matter because cleaning up will only get rid of the evidence that she was a part of your life and you want to hang onto every speck of her dirt and dust. You're out of salt.

You actually ran out of salt. The tub with the girl with the umbrella that you bought ten years ago, the one that survived two moves, is empty. Is that why she left? When the salt runs out, it's time to reevaluate things, see where you're at, whether you should stay or go to grad school in Richmond.

"You can cut in front of me," the woman with two carts full of meats and cookies says. "If all you have is that one microwave burrito and those three six packs of Magic Hat."